First Lady Michelle Obama addressed the semi-viral clip of husband and former president Barack Obama’s tearful response to her skirt paying tribute to her late mother, saying “there’s still a very narrow definition of what it means to be a man” as she lamented the stigma around men being vulnerable.
The skirt Michelle wore to the opening of the Obama Presidential Library featured a large photo of her mother Marianne Robinson, who died in May 2024. The reveal to her husband prompted a strong emotional response from the former president, an experience Michelle said men still don’t often get to have.
“But we’ve done a great job in our lifetime of expanding the possibilities of what women and girls can be,” she said during a lengthy interview with MS Now’s Michelle Norris this week. “We’ve worked hard to redefine that, and to say you can make all the bacon and fry it up in a pan. You can do it all. You can be a mom.”
“But during that time, I don’t think we’ve done at an equal justice to opening the aperture for what our men and boys can be,” she continued. “There’s still a very narrow definition of what it means to be a man.”
The Obamas sat down for lengthy interviews with Norris that covered a wide range of topics, including the family’s legacy and how Americans of all walks of life are represented at the center.
Michelle’s interview was published first. Norris and Michelle spoke about LA-based artist Nijedka Akunyili Crosby’s painting of the presidential couple, which was unveiled this week. “All of her paintings are paintings within paintings, pictures and images within,” Michelle explained. “When you step back and see the bigger image and then slowly get closer and see the power of all the selections of images and where she placed them and why she placed them there.”
Part of the goal at the Center is for anyone, no matter their political affiliation, to feel represented there, she also said. “I think that’s what resonates, and what will resonate for people of all backgrounds, is they will see themselves in these floors,” Michelle said. “That America will see itself. And I’m saying all of America, regardless of political party, regardless of whether you vote it for us or like us or have nasty things to say about us, or not, or love us.”
Barack Obama emphasized a similar theme in his own interview. “There’s this belief in an American story that begins with these amazing words, this declaration that we are created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights,” he told Norris. “But it was imperfect. And then we struggled to make that ideal real.”
That ideal “has always stood in opposition with a different idea of America that is based on caste and privilege and excluding people and dominating people,” he added. “And those two contrasting stories about America, a lot of my speeches, a lot of my politics has been arguing this is the better story.”
The Obama Presidential Center is “a response to what has always been there in America. That part of America that says Black people don’t belong. Or that says that women need to be in their place. Gay folks need to be in the closet. And poor people need to stop complaining because a handful of people are the ones who are creating the wealth and they deserve to keep it. And we don’t need to take care of the vulnerable and we don’t need to make public investments in our community.”
He also noted that a lot of people believe “these two stories are completely separate,” but the reality is that they are tied together.
“And that’s why it’s possible for me to be a great admirer of George Washington and also acknowledge he was a slave holder. And that does not negate his greatness. It simply acknowledges that there’s a profound deep flaw in these founding fathers who were also geniuses and gave us these tools. We’re just true of all of us, right? It’s true of every president. We’re this mixed bag. We’ve got contradictions.”
Watch the interviews with Barack and Michelle Obama in the videos above.
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